Good morning, friends.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 3:8, “So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them – walking, leaping, and praising God.”
The Make-A-Wish Foundation was started in 1980 to grant “wishes” to children with critical illnesses. The inspiration for the foundation came through the wish of 7-year-old Christopher Greicius, a boy with leukemia who wanted to be a police officer. A U.S. Customs Officer befriended Christopher and eventually coordinated with the Arizona Department of Public Safety to enable Christopher to spend the day as a police officer, ride in a police helicopter, receive a custom-tailored uniform, and be sworn in as the first honorary patrolman in state history. After his death shortly thereafter, the foundation was created and has since granted thousands of wishes all around the world. It’s not uncommon for folk such as you and I to wish for something. Each day brings with it things we want to be or have which are not presently ours. But the real wishes are probably best characterized as those that are far-reaching and quite unlikely to occur without the influence of things outside our control, like a dying child who wants to be a police office. Or a man lame from birth walking and leaping. Or a person lost and destined for hell receiving forgiveness and new life eternal to enjoy his God forever. That’s a wish that no man could grant. For just as lame men don’t walk, spiritually dead individuals don’t come alive and give themselves a new heart.
But when that wish is granted by the One who made the wish and had the power and will to fulfill it, then the one blessed by it will be able to do things he’d never been able to before. Even more so than going from lame to leaping, the redeemed sinner can now know God, please God, talk to and hear from God. He can worship and praise the One who opens eyes. He can tell the story that he now knows is true to someone else who has no chance of experiencing this wish on their own. He can trust in Someone who has all wisdom and power and is forever faithful. I wonder if there are ways you’re living like the days before your wish was fulfilled. If so, stand and walk into the presence of God, and you will remember again how to leap and praise Him.
As we seek Him today, remember what is available to you because of what Christ has done for and to you. Thank Him that He desired to make you His own, and then He made it happen.
Have a fulfilling Tuesday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
